From The Depths
by Cari7
Summary: Takes place right before Season 4 "Deep Down". Some of the thoughts Angel has during his 3 month vacation at sea. Rated R for language. Disclaimer: I don't own any of them... it's all so sad.


**From The Depths**-by Cari Kinz

The cold shouldn't bother him but it did. The common misconception was that vampires didn't feel cold. The truth was that, where as they weren't as affected as a human would be, they did feel it.

The bottom of the ocean is cold. Freezing in fact. And he did feel it. A lot.

The water wasn't fun either. It had leaked in through seams and pooled around his feet and then his knees. He figured that the pressure had equalized or else the water would have continued to come in.

Cold and wet, not a combination anyone wants for very long. And he had been in both for a long time.

That was how he thought of it now: A long time. The first days and weeks, he'd kept track of. But as time wore on, his mind began to wander as his body shut itself down.

He'd heard of this before. A vampire, trapped, alone and without blood, goes into a kind of hibernation until… Until someone wakes him up, he guessed.

However long that might be.

He'd never really given it much thought before. Now, he was thinking about it quite often. That, and how he'd come to be here.

Connor.

But that was the simple answer. Connor had put him here but there were so many things leading up to this.

Holtz was the architect. But then Holtz wouldn't have been able to twist Connor if not for Wesley's betrayal. Wesley, who thought he was doing the right thing because of Angel's own history… which of course brought him back to Holtz and what he'd done to the man.

Those thoughts swirled inside his head over and over. The lines intersected and merged until he began to see a pattern that wasn't so hard to understand after all.

Past and present, coming together with one goal: His destruction. Because he was the only factor that they had in common.

And so, he reasoned, had he had time to think about it before, he would have seen what was inevitable. If not Connor and Holtz, then perhaps some other friend or enemy. Someone would have eventually seen a flaw, a chink in his armor. Perhaps they might have seen kindness as weakness, control as cowardice. Or worse yet, as Wesley apparently had, decided that even with a soul, he was too much of a risk.

He wanted to believe it was paranoia but considering the circumstances, that was a hard sell. The thoughts were with him whether he wanted to believe them or not. He had no choice but to think them and ponder them.

That is, when he wasn't sleeping.

He slept a lot. At first, he had dreams of rescue. Connor had had a change of heart, had come back for him. Cordy would know something was wrong when he failed to meet her, she would find him. Sometimes it was Wesley, or Gunn who found him. One time Fred had found him, all by herself. She had smiled; proud that she had saved him this time. And once… once it had been Buffy, come to save him as he would have done for her. He woke from that still smelling the soft scent of her hair.

His friends would find him. They would be together again.

As time went on though, the dreams became darker. The hunger had risen in him and without real prey to hunt, began to stalk his friends in his dreams. He was the vehicle it used for their deaths.

He often woke to the deafening sound of his own screams, trapped with him, without escape.

The only thing worse was waking up to hear his own laughter.

It had a name after all. This hunger, this desire.

Angelus.

Angel opened his eyes. He was sitting in a meadow. The sun was shining over head but he didn't panic. He wasn't burning but he was warm. And warm was definitely a good thing.

He sighed happily and looked around.

The breeze blew through the trees and a fluffy white cloud floated in front of the sun. It was a perfectly beautiful day.

"You're an idiot." A voice said from behind him.

Angel didn't bother to turn, just continued to watch the clouds.

"I said you're an idiot!"

"I heard you." He said. The fluffy cloud moved on and the sun shown down un-obscured once again.

"Well? Are you just going to sit there?" Angelus asked and came to stand infront of him.

Angel thought about it for a moment. "Yeh. I think I will just sit here."

Angelus swore under his breath. "This is a dream, moron. You know that, right?"

Angel leaned back and continued contemplating the clouds.

"You are at the bottom of the god damn ocean!" Angelus yelled. "Not in the middle of a Summer's Eve commercial!"

"I know." Angel said softly. "And there's nothing I can do about it. I've done the 'watch the fish swim by' thing for awhile. This seems like a nice alternative. Except for you of course."

"I'm here to give you some perspective." Angelus said with a frown. "You are taking this way too calmly. It's time to start thinking of the future."

"As you so kindly pointed out, I'm in a box on the floor of the ocean. My future is pretty much planned out for the moment."

"Bullshit. You know as well as I do it's only a matter of time before someone finds you. And when that happens… well… that's what I want to talk about."

The sky started to darken. The fluffy cloud now had company in the form of black thunderheads. Angel sighed.

"Always raining on my parade." He mumbled as it started to sprinkle. He got up and headed for a gazebo that had appeared a moment before. Angelus trailed after him.

"The way I see it is you've had your time, now it's mine." Angelus said.

"Oh?" Angel sat down on the bench inside the gazebo. There was a tray with a towel and a glass of tea. He dried his face off with the towel and inhaled the fresh clean smell of it. "And what makes you think you get a time?" he asked Angelus. "In fact, I think you had all the time you should ever have."

"Oh for Christ's sakes! You can't even imagine it's blood?" Angelus picked up the glass of tea and hurled it out into the meadow. "This is why you are sitting on the bottom of the ocean dumbass! This fucking 'good guy' attitude! It SUCKS!" Angelus stalked back and forth. "They've lost respect for you! GOD! I sit there in your head and see it day after day. Gunn making his wiseass remarks when he knows you could kill him without breaking a sweat. And why does he do it? Because you won't and he knows it! Cordy and her boy toy, running around… You think she doesn't know you want her? But what does she do? Sends you off to get the mojo so she can screw the Groosalugg! And you did it!" Angelus stopped in front of Angel, hands up, waiting. Angel just stared at him.

"ARRRGG! It's like talking to a wall!" he said turning away from Angel in disgust. "They did this too you and you don't have any idea what to do when you get out."

"Connor is confused." Angel said. "This isn't his fault."

Angelus stared out over the meadow and snorted through his nose. "Yeh. Connor is confused. But… hmmm… weren't you supposed to be meeting Cordy? That's right. You were supposed to be meeting Cordy. She was going to tell you something so important. And yet… all you got was your little bastard and the business end of a cattle prod. Sort of, I don't know, convenient wouldn't you say?"

Angel frowned. "What are you trying to say?"

"You're the detective, so get a clue." Angelus smirked at him. "Cordy says 'Meet me.' You go, no Cordy. Just The Lost Boy. Hmmm." He rubbed his chin as if in thought. "Does the word 'ambush' mean anything to you?"

_No, it didn't happen that way_. Angel thought, glaring at Angelus. "You're crazy." He said softly.

Angelus arched his eyebrows. "Really? Never heard that before. Well, maybe once or twice. But even if I am, it doesn't mean I'm wrong. Maybe she's been doing him too. Ohh, now that is quite a scenario."

Angel turned and stepped out of the gazebo. "Now I know you're completely nuts. You're evil and crazy. You're a pain in the ass and that's all you are because you're never getting out again."

Angelus laughed. "Sure, but you forgot one thing I am: A crutch."

Angel stopped. "What are you talking about?"

"A crutch." Angelus strolled out into the meadow. "All your nasty thoughts. All the things that flit through your mind… Hmmm… things you'd like to do to Cordy… to Fred. How you'd love to have some fresh, warm, human blood dripping from your fangs… Conspiracies you think you're friends might be contemplating, and hey, who could blame you? Look at Wesley after all. You want to put it all off on me. But the truth is, that pretty soul keeps me down. All those thoughts are yours pal."

"You're full of shit." Angel growled. The rain had stopped and the sun had come out again. It seemed brighter than before and Angel lifted a hand to shield his eyes.

"Am I?" Angelus smiled. "These are your thoughts Angel, not mine. Your thoughts, running through your head. I'm the guy you blame them on because you're the good guy. You have a soul and for some reason you think that makes you immune, but soul or not, you are still a vampire. You still have all the thoughts and wants and instincts… even if you do blame it all on me. And me? You think you're talking to Angelus but I'm just a hallucination, like the rest of this. You've been talking to yourself all this time. You know what you are, even if you won't admit it."

The sun was blazing down so bright that Angel blinked his eyes against it.

"I know what I am. The difference is, I control who I am, and what I do." He told Angelus.

Angelus shrugged. "Yeh, ok. Try to remember that when the lid comes off the box. Otherwise…"

Angel opened his eyes and blinked against the light being shown through the window of his casket. A diver was looking in at him.

He felt the box shift and then it was moving up through the water.

He was being rescued.

As he watched the water rush past the window, he heard Angelus' voice in his head.

Or was it his voice?

Try to remember that when the lid comes off… 

"I control who I am, and what I do." He said softly as the box was lowered onto the deck.

He heard the sounds of the fittings that secured the lid coming off. There was a rush of cool air and a face, a familiar face…

Wesley.

Angel's hand shot up and grabbed Wesley by the throat.

In his head he heard Angelus laughing.

I control 

He let his grip loosen.

Who I am 

He stared at Wesley a moment longer.

_And what I do._

He let his eyes close and slipped back into the darkness.


End file.
